Energise!

I did go to the London Screenwriters Festival and it was good. Very good. I almost didn't go, I'm very glad I did.

But that's not what this blog is about.

It's about something screenwriters talk about in relation to scripts but something I have never seen defined: "Script energy".

This came to mind because of John August and Craig Mazin's podcast this week. You can listen here, the relevant bit is around 33 minutes - but why not listen to it all?

[Of course, it was a risk writing this before I finished listening to the podcast and, of course, they carried on and said much of what I wrote here, but less pedantically. But what the hell. I'll leave it, it was still my realisation, at the time.]

So "energy": Craig is talking about scenes ending with an energy that propels the viewer forward. But what is this energy? Just saying "your script lacks energy" or "this scene lacks energy" is unhelpful. Am I supposed to fry it with 20,000 volts? Okay, disingenuous, but still. What. Is. It?

So I applied some of the old mind power. And this is what I came up with, you may feel differently.

When talking about this energy we're actually talking about the viewer's reaction. It's not actually energy in the script, it's the energy the script generates in the viewer. I got a grip on it by looking at a scene which lacks energy (a metaphorical scene, not a real one):

Let's say someone watches this metaphorical scene, and at the end of it they sigh and say "so what?" The scene engenders nothing in the viewer, or rather it engenders boredom, disinterest. An emotional state of nothing much really. That scene has no energy.

A scene that brings about any emotional state reaction is a scene that has energy. But that's not all of it.

A scene could of itself be complete, it could start somewhere, cause an emotion and then complete. It still wouldn't have the energy we're really talking about because at the end of it there is no impetus to continue. The viewer could just stop and be satisfied. And we don't want that. (Want to know a reason why you get out of a scene as early as possible - that.)

What we want is the viewer to cry out "What happens next???!!!" They want to know, they must know what happens next. They cannot stop watching they have to know.

And, in my view, that is the energy, it's the desire to keep going, keep watching, keep listening, to stick with it because they have to know. (In horror it's a kind of negative: they have to know, but they really don't want to, but they have to...)

'Nuff said.

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What's on the turntable? "BWV 1004 Chaconne by Bach" by Steve Hackett from "Tribute to Bach"

Blown trumpets

A quick follow-up to the previous post, in case the statement about me writing fairly decent first drafts might have been poo-pooed. One of my first draft scripts received the following comments:

"The greatest contributor to this screenplay’s enjoyabilty is perhaps its well-written dialogue, descriptions, and action sequences."

and from a different reader:

"Almost every page of this screenplay contains a new visual delight.  The screen directions are clear and economical, painting word pictures of each scene without bogging the reader down in unnecessary details."

But, of course, the reason why this script will never win any prizes as it stands, because it is a first draft: "sometimes plot elements are unexplained or become confusing" and "your plot is too rambling and lacks cohesion – plot elements crop up, seem important, and then are discarded". From the same two readers - but essentially saying the same thing.

The details may be fine, but the big picture is flawed.

Doesn't matter how good a first draft you write: It's not finished. Writing is rewriting.

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What's on the turntable? Nowt

First draft is the best

Yeah right.

As was stated recently by my blogger good buddy Kid in the Front Row: it's great how independent movies can be made nowadays with no interference from the big studios through the use of crowdfunding.

But there's one major problem with that: No quality control.

I have been generous with my funding of projects on Kickstarter and IndieGoGo - I want to do some major crowdfunding in the future and I have a "what goes around comes around" attitude. As you give so shall you receive and all that.

This has had one unfortunate result. My name is now attached to a product which suffers from a script that clearly has had zero quality control. Honestly, I have the greatest admiration for someone getting off their backside and actually making something. But please put the work in with the script first, it's the most important part.

(On the positive side I've also helped produce some very good stuff as well.)

But if you want proof positive? I have two scripts as quarter-finalists in Philip Gladwin's Screenwriting Goldmine competition. Now I'm not saying this as a boast because I submitted four (or was it five?) scripts in a fit of crazy overspending. (This makes me only 20% as good as those who put in one script and got it through.)

Of those scripts the two that got through were the ones that had received a massive amount of feedback. I'm mean, seriously, a lot - over a two year period in both cases. The others had had minimal or none. First drafts.

Now I know I don't write totally crap first drafts, they're reasonable and they're readable. But they aren't great. Screenwriting is hard work, all art is 5% creativity and 95% hard slog.

There are those who will tell you that buying feedback from script readers is useless because they'll always tell you that more work needs to be done. Or they don't know what they're talking about. Or some other excuse.

It's bollocks. The only people who will say this are those not willing to put in the work needed to make their scripts great.  I have had a script reader tell me that a script is as good as it can get - until a director gets his hands on it, of course. And that is one of the scripts that got through and I haven't touched it since he told me.

If you're serious about being a screenwriter you need professional feedback. And you need to trust these guys and gals, because they know what they're talking about.

Are there any caveats? Yes, anyone can set themselves up as a reader - but I have yet to find one who was a fraud and I've used quite a lot of different ones. It is possible to come across one who doesn't quite have the same sensibilities as you. This does not mean they don't know what they're talking about but if you don't get on, it's not going to work so well. But that's just life.

If you can get two reports on the same draft that's good, but three is better. And rotate them, and try to get someone new on a draft because if a reader's seen it before their attitudes to the previous version will still be sitting there (though I know they try hard to read each draft as if they've never seen it before).

So what's the take-away? Scripts always need work. Get feedback so you know what to work on.

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What's on the turntable? "The Light Dies Down on Broadway" by Genesis from "A Lamb Lies Down on Broadway"

Research is ace

Sorry it's been so long since the last blog entry. I had a very draggy and stressful summer. Apart from my week's holiday with the family at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival which was great.

And it was at that we went to see a one-man show called "Winston on the Run". About (true) events in the life of a young Winston Spencer Churchill during the Second Boer War. Which included one incident that, if it happened in a story you would be disgusted at the author's use of Deus ex machina and yet it really happened.

I had been flailing around looking for something new to write - based in the Voidships steampunk universe - and this play inspired me. Yes, it will be about the early life of Winston Churchill - but an alternative Winston in our alternative universe - and that's all you're going to get on the content.

So this evening I forced my posterior into the chair and had a good hour and a bit researching the background to the book. I've already done some research on Winston and his family - really quite juicy stuff - but that's all very well but a story is really driven by the antagonist.

The best stories feature the best antagonists - and they have plans; good plans; plans that have genuine purpose; that have meaning. The antagonist is the hero of his story.

I can't say I have it nailed down, but I have an inkling. More thought required.

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What's on the turntable? "Dreamer" by Supertramp from "Crime of the Century"

Is that a good idea?

Do you listen to the John August/Craig Mazin podcast? You don't? Oh my, you should. The inside skinny (which is deeper than just "the skinny") on writing things, with particular reference to the Hollywood experience by two people who really know what they're talking about. Go here.

Anyway the interesting question of the week this time around was "Which script should I write next?" to which, in essence, the answer was: The one you'd love to see. The one you'd pay money to go and see.

Which is cool. It decided me on my next TV script (something which would be appointment TV for me) and just this evening, while watching the not-very-good Mummy 3, I had an idea. Just a concept really but, though I say so myself, it is awesome.

Scott at Go into the Story is keen to encourage writers to think of idea after idea (spend time each day just generating ideas), and learn to judge what are the excellent ones - anything less than excellent isn't worth working on. I admit I don't do that, at least not the way he suggests, but I do have ideas constantly. (I'll drive down the road, see someone standing by a wall - and invent a story idea as to why they're there based on the way they look, how they hold themselves and their emotional tone.)

Are you having enough ideas?

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What's on the turntable? "Wicked Windows" by Jethro Tull from "J-Tull Dot Com"

Abe Lincoln and the Axe

I saw Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter this weekend. It scores 6.4 on IMDb which is below what is a typical rating for a "reasonable" movie - and, reading the reviews, it definitely polarises viewpoints.

I liked it. As did my wife, daughter (21) and son (15). And it generated some after-movie conversation which is always a good sign. In fact we measure the success of a movie by how much after-movie discussion we engage in.

Many of the IMDb review criticisms are "it's not like the book" so we can ignore those: Some people just can't get past the fact that films are most often not like the book (even LOTR took huge liberties) and to go in expecting it will be is foolish. EDIT: As it turns out the screen adaptation was by the original author anyway, so no "not like the book" complaint is valid.

But the reason, I think, some people did not like is that it's thoughtful and, unlike most action movies, spans almost his entire life.

It's not a perfect film, there were perhaps two points where my screenwriting head went "what?", but it is not by any means a bad film.

###NON-SPECIFIC SPOILERAGE FOLLOWS###

What the film does suggest is that the war between the north and south in the US was because vampires find slavery ideal: They can own slaves and then do whatever they want with them without being questioned.

The first part of the film involves Abe fighting vampires on a one-to-one basis, but then moves into his political career where he knows he's still fighting vampires but at a distance instead. Ultimately he has to go hand-to-hand again for the final confrontation.

###END OF SPOILERAGE###

The vampiric theme is wound into the actual events of Lincoln's life and is treated as a metaphor for slavery. And I can't say that I disagree with the suggestion.

Weirdly enough, though a "summer blockbuster" this film is guaranteed to annoy and upset some people - because of what it says. As one positive reviewer said "You'll have to bring your brain to enjoy this movie."

And I find that rather refreshing.

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What's on the turntable? No idea.

On being a producer

I thought I'd share some thoughts on my experiences, thus far, in being a Producer.

What a Producer does is lead. They're the leader. It's true that the word has become devalued by excessive use in the film industry with all sorts of "producers" but ultimately the Producer is the one that makes it happen.

Which is where I was at about 9 months ago with the webseries WINTER. Or rather that's exactly where we weren't. No producer. Nothing happening. Until I went "if I don't do something this is never going to happen".

And that's the first step, you have to decide to make it happen.

But when you make that decision you become responsible. And if you're responsible that means things can come back and bite you. If you're worried about getting bitten I suspect being a Producer is not a good gig for you.

Personally I gave up worrying about that sort of thing a long time ago. I've made huge mistakes in my life, and I'm still here, living, breathing and having fun.

Get educated

So what comes after making the decision? I'd recommend some education, you have to make the decision first, then you can find out what it's all about. (Personally I think doing it the other way around is prevarication - trying to find out if you'll like it before making the decision is the behaviour of a person who's worried about making mistakes. You will make mistakes, get over it.)

But once you have decided, you do need to know more. What is a Producer responsible for?

That's easy: Everything except the creative decisions. The money, the crew, the cast, the food, the transport, the scheduling, the equipment. It's the Producer's job to ensure everything is in place so that the creative process can happen with the minimum of distraction. So the creative people can do their creative thing without having to worry about lunch.

But you know, I'm also the Writer. I created the original script. Doesn't that mean I have input?

As the Producer? No way. Yes, a Producer needs to control the budget and that may require negotiation with the Director and the Writer (if you haven't got the budget for a free-running sequence through the mall they have to think of something else) - the Director is not allowed to waste money. But the Producer is the one who puts everything in place so the creation can happen.

You have to get the idea of hats. Which one are you wearing? Each hat is different and you can't wear more than one at a time. I'm the Producer or the Writer. But not at the same time.

Sorry, back the point. Education. Well I looked up this guy Eric Sherman and he has a seminar he gave on DVD all about being a Producer (which he is) it's not cheap but it is valuable.

I've bought books, though they tend to be of variable quality: Some are out of date, some are purely US in viewpoint, some aren't worth the paper they're printed on.  To be honest with Eric Sherman's DVD I think I had everything I could get without actually doing the job. The books reinforced certain areas but didn't add anything fundamental. I suppose the main thing they did provide is a way to list everything that was needed.

Essential quality

There is one essential quality a Producer needs: the ability to handle the situations that inevitably arise which demand instant handling. And when I use the word handle I mean "resolve". That does not include panicking, shouting, screaming, running in circles, hiding in the toilet or anything which is simply: resolve.

At our shoot back in May the first thing that happened was the make-up girl called in to say there'd been a family emergency. That was not a serious problem, we could manage without in this instance. Then we discovered one of the leads had no costume. The wardrobe person also failed to turn up and even if she had she admitted she hadn't got all the costume together. (The other lead's costume had been acquired separately.)

It's a period piece and costume is critical.

So we looked at various solutions, phoned someone who was an expert in the period, and with their help figured out how we could create a costume from gear bought from Primark plus a brooch. And borrowed the Afghan shawl from the Cinematographer.

We lost two hours. But caught up by the end of the day.

Since then

We did the one-day shoot on a shoestring - for expensive shoes. Almost immediately after we'd finished my attention became fixated on the full shoot of twelve days in a studio. How much is it going to cost? (A lot.) And where's the money going to come from? And I have a solution to that.

It comes down to this decision thing again. You have to make the decision first. "We are going to make this webseries to professional standards."

The second part is How? Anyone who starts with how and hasn't made the decision will almost certainly fail. If you make the decision then the how will come to you eventually.

It was the Director who put me on the right track for our solution: he said why don't we try to get actor A? I thought that was a good idea but also A might be difficult to get (I'd never dealt with agents before,  and this guy is currently quite ... significant).

So I thought on it: "But if we got actor B first, who's a really good friend of A but nowhere near as big that might give us some extra leverage to get A - and B would be a good attachment in the first place anyway".

See, when you decide to be a Producer you think like a Producer - in terms of packaging and attachments in order to get the finance needed to make the project. If you think you're a Producer and haven't had this change in thought processes, you haven't really made the decision.

Anyway we have been able to attach B. And now I'm working on A. What's it like dealing with agents? Fine, they're human beings too, just understand they want to get the best deal they can for their client.

So when I have A and everything's in writing we move ahead with financing.

There is one little lie you may come across: "things take time". I can tell you this: they don't have to.

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What's on the turntable? "Mobocaster" by Tangerine Dream

Compete this!

I know, that's very poor English.

I have been so busy doing the producer thing, and worrying about producer stuff, that between that and the day job I've had very little time to do anything useful in the writing department.

Which, for a writer, is not a good thing.

However I have come across four competitions recently which I thought "why not" so here they are for your information because you might want to do them too (if you haven't already heard about them and entered).

If you don't read the Go Into The Story blog by Scott Myers then ... you should. It's possibly the most abundant and useful screenwriting blog on the web (John August notwithstanding). Well Scott is running a free-to-enter thing called The Quest based on his screenwriting course which he's essentially giving away free to four winners, with some lovely development extras.

Now I would say "lucky" winners, but luck has nothing to do with it. You have to sell him your feature film concept with a killer logline. If "Scott The Producer" likes your logline you get the development deal. The development deal being that Scott will help you turn that killer logline into a killer script. But as I say, no luck involved, you better deliver a totally awesome logline that is awesomer than the other thousand-odd he's going to get.

Okay from the awesome but incredibly hard to win, to the competition-with-excellent-odds:

50 Kisses : write a 2 minute script, get chosen as one of the 50 winners, it gets made and packaged with the other winners into a "feature" that already has distribution. But that's the point: it's free to enter and there are fifty winners. Them's great odds. You'll find all the rules here.

About 18 months ago Little Brother ran a screenwriting opportunity. At that time they didn't even have a website but make no mistake, Little Brother isn't an insignificant player. This time around they do have a web site which is here. The prize is a little bit of cash (£1000) but far more importantly the opportunity to develop your TV idea through to treatment stage. You do need to have some professional credit for this - but not too much :-) I'm not even sure I qualify but it's another free-to-enter.

And finally: Screenwriting Goldmine, I know, sounds crassly commercial but it's run by Philip Gladwin and he's based in Hove in Sussex. Anyway Philip has set up a competition, it's not free to enter but £24 (early bird) is not too bad.

The one prize I really like is this one:

Individual, one-to-one coffee meeting with one of the following: Independent Producer Matt Bouch, OR Steve Matthews (Producer, Octagon Films), OR Fraser Robinson (Director of Scripted Development at NBC Universal), OR Ben Stoll (Head of Development, Channel 4 Drama). You choose the meeting that YOU think is best suited to your writing. 

And the judges are pretty awesome too.

Right, that's it from me for now. I'll try not to leave it so long until next time.

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What's on the turntable? "Levon" by Elton John from "Madman across the Water"

Technical knockout

Oh my, it's been over a month. Sorry to have neglected you but I've been busy.

I have completed ScriptFrenzy for the 6th year but only "technically". Which is to say that the Celtx generation of PDF reached 100 pages (WIN!), however in actual comic book pages I got to about 74 (not really a win). But I learned a lot, mostly that writing a graphic novel is really quite hard. Unfortunately the story began to deviate from my plan almost from the start and I wrote myself into a very dull corner. (I had called this post "Technical win" but that doesn't sound anywhere near as interesting as "Technical knockout".)

Of course, at the same time, I've been doing the Producer thing in order to shoot scene 8 of our steampunk webseries WINTER. More than that we've been going through a crowd-funding exercise and I have been sending out emails to everyone I have contact with (and that's several hundred).

And still doing the day job, of course.

But my mind is heavily focussed on ensuring that the shoot goes according to plan. There are so many things to think about from the producer side, I have been given able assistance from people who've already done it. Without them I imagine I would have been rather lost.

Anyway I'm not lost and it's going smoothly (everything crossed, touch wood).

So, give us a hand and contribute to our project at http://igg.me/p/93585?a=405734

Self, Director, and cast all available for interview :-)

(Oh, and I got a rejection from a very well-respected agency. "Clearly a very talented screenwriter..." they said. Which was nice. "...but no clear distinction from our other writers." Ha! I'm too busy to care - I don't even remember sending them a script.)

(Also went to see John Carter which was really quite good, and Battleship - it's not a deep film, but very enjoyable and does have real characters and real plot. It's also has very well integrated links to the game. I was quite impressed. It even managed to surprise me a couple of times.)

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What's on the turntable? "The Fall of the House of Usher: Arrival" by The Alan Parson's Project from "Tales of Mystery and Imagination".

The Ice Furnace

Hallo peeps.

I've been ultra busy with writing stuff, production stuff, work stuff, family stuff, so I've decided to do something else as well.

It's ScriptFrenzy time again!

This is that awesome time of year when you are provided, free, gratis and for nothing, with a built-in deadline to get your feature script written in just 30 days.

I've done it every year of its existence which means I have five feature scripts I might not otherwise have had.

This year I am writing The Ice Furnace which is a sequel to the film script I wrote last year (and thus part of the collaborative transmedia Voidships project) but I'm doing it as a graphic novel instead - and I even have an artist who will (hopefully) get the some of the first chapter on paper before the end of April. Pretty graphics, yay!

Anyway, thought I'd just keep you up-to-date on what's happening.

Do ScriptFrenzy - you know it makes sense - what are you going to write?

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What's on the turntable? [at work so nuffink]

Celtx forever

Hello peeps. It's been a while since my last major onslaught in this here locale.

As you may, or may not, know I write scripts using Celtx. It's a lovely bit of kit, and free. It's been around for years and is looked after by a friendly bunch of Canadians (is that a tautology?) so is totally solid as a product.

But I'm not trying to sell you Celtx. Well, perhaps I am because I can't see why anyone would want to spend any money on a screenwriting program when they don't have to.

Except there was a reason - but it's just been eliminated.

There was one, and only one, reason to use Final Draft to my mind, and that was if I was suddenly recognised as a great scriptwriter and had to work with organisations too hide-bound and bureaucratic to think that they could use anything else, I'd have to switch.

Because there's no practical way of converting from Celtx to FD and back again.

Or, at least there wasn't.

Enter, stage right, John August screenwriter and tech-savvy person with clout in the industry.

Last week he launched Fountain. All Fountain is is a way of writing scripts using just a text processor (you could use NotePad on Windows). You have to follow a certain style but if you do then it can be understood by another computer program and converted into a PDF or FDX (Final Draft's latest format).

I thought this was jolly good. Though I'd still prefer to use something that formats on screen.

But this week John released the killer Highland which is an application that can convert between FDX, Fountain and PDFs. Yup. John has an application that can take a PDF and turn them into Fountain, and from Fountain you can go to FDX (or PDF).

Which means I no longer need to think about changing to FD.

All that's needed now is for the Celtx team to modify their text importer to recognise Fountain and we're set.

Some people are bound to whine about potential script theft being made easier. Well John does have something to say about that in the blog. I'm not going to discuss it since I agree with him completely.

But what it means for me is that I can go on using Celtx forever.

And that makes me happy.

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What's on the turntable? Unfortunately nothing but recently I have mostly been listening to Nathalie Nordnes.

Brilliant

It has to be.

Over the past few weeks I've been swapping my writer's hat with my producer's hat for our web series WINTER. And I've talked to people about it, trying to encourage them to join our merry little band of pre-production heroes. (The AD and composer from MONSTERS are on-board and we have two CGI peeps so far.)

And over that time something's started to nag me.

Back in the 1980s the concept of "desktop publishing" was born. The completely new idea that a person could, with a personal computer, design and print leaflets, brochures, magazines, letterheads and a myriad other printed paper products. Hooray! Democratisation of print processes. No more slaves to the designer.

What happens: Crap designs. Everywhere. Graphic design takes training, to do it well requires talent.

And now the Internet and affordable cameras have meant the democratisation of movie-making. Yayyy!

What happens? Crap web series.

Of course there are some good ones, but these are mostly produced by professionals. Because every element of film production takes training and the ability to do it well needs talent.

I'll say here and now that I believe the main problem with web series is the writer-director. Because if they are the same person there's no objective view. "I've written this, I think it's great, I'm going to make it." And they do, and it's not great at all. Maybe it could have been great if it had received proper development.

And then there's WINTER. I wrote it. I'm not directing it but I am producing it. This is very different because producers have to be able to sell. Sell themselves, sell the project. To be able to do that you really have to believe in it.

So, do I believe in WINTER? Yes. Do I think it's ready to really sell to someone. Well, no. You see, right now it's good. Script-wise it's certainly better than 99% of the web series floating about.

But it's not brilliant - not yet. It's nearly brilliant. It needs that extra fillip to push it into brilliant.

It might seem strange, ego-centric or whatever, that I should describe something I wrote as nearly brilliant. But it's a matter of viewpoint. Right now I'm not wearing the writer's hat, I'm wearing the producer's hat. And the producer says "This is pretty damn good - now let's make it brilliant."

Because it has to be.

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What's on the turntable? Nowt.

A word from our sponsor.

Over on the Voidships channel the latest blog about WINTER.

(I've been studying about the producer-ing business - look, ma, I'm a hyphenate.)

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What's on the turntable? "Money for Nothing" by Dire Straits

Any portfolio in a storm

What a title! I'm so funny! I bet you laughed 'til you stopped.

Why do experienced writers always enjoin (today's special word) you to have a portfolio of scripts?

So that when you read about some producer saying I'm looking for a script that's blah blah and blah, you can say "I have a blah blah blah script". Because a blah blah bleargh script will not be good enough.

Happened to me this morning "lo-budget short with SF or fantasy elements". Unicorn script in email within seconds.

High Five!

Make sure you have a portfolio.

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What's on the turntable? (Nuffink I'm just off to work)

Coming up in 2012

(I am not writing this at midnight I've just scheduled it to appear at that time.)

Two years ago I organised some additional shooting for the Monsters trailer. In my past I have run businesses, organised and run exhibitions, been an organiser of massive events. Talking to people and in front of large groups doesn't scare me.

Which is why I finally decided to embrace something that has been creeping up on me. I've known it was there but pretended it wasn't.

The Producer's Hat - though I suspect wearing a hat is probably more useful than embracing it.

This year we will make Winter or at least film the actors (it will be CGI sets a la Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow). But for that to happen we have to drive it forward and unless we pick up the Producer's hat and get it worn, that won't happen. As I have more time than Chris the Director - and once the writing stage is complete I effectively have nothing to do (sort of) - it may as well be me.

Truth is, I enjoy it. I pretend not to but when, for example, we lost the cameraman a day or so before shooting the additional footage for Monsters - I managed to organise a replacement within 24 hours. It was exciting, scary and fun.

So that's the big target for the coming year: Shoot Winter. And it's a biggee. I have been gathering every bit of information (including buying a seminar on DVD from an actual producer on the subject of being one) books and so forth. It's no good going into this blind. And then adjusting everything I'm learning to fit the crowd-sourcing paradigm. It's a fun game.

Lesser goals for the year:

1. Script in for Red Planet;
2. Re-work two feature scripts so they stop saying I am merely competent;
3. Build industry contacts;
4. Get web sites running and generating income so I'm less reliant on the day job;

Overall policy for the year: Get busy!

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What's on the turntable? "Amarok" by Mike Oldfield